More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Bound and under heavy guard was a male slave unlike any Guion had ever seen.
“Your Prince is, of course, free to name him whatever he likes,” said Lady Jokaste. “But I believe it would greatly please the King if he were to call him ‘Damen.’” Her eyes glittered.
“Take me to see my brother,” he demanded, and the soldiers laughed, and one kicked him in the stomach. “Your brother’s the one who gave the order,” one of them sneered. “You’re lying. Kastor’s no traitor.” But the door of his cell slammed shut, and doubt raised its head for the first time.
When he realised where he was being taken, he began to struggle again, violently.
He said, “Why keep me alive? What—need—does this satisfy? It’s neat enough, except for that. Is it—” He bit down on it; she deliberately misunderstood his words. “A brother’s love? You don’t know him at all, do you. What’s a death but easy, quick. It’s supposed to haunt you forever that the one time he beat you was the one time that mattered.”
You’re a slave. You’re worth nothing. Prince Damianos is dead.”
He had been pulled from the wagon into a closed courtyard and . . . he remembered bells. The courtyard had filled with the sudden sound of bells, a cacophony of sound from the highest places in the city, carrying in the warm evening air. Bells at dusk, heralding a new King. Theomedes is dead. All hail Kastor.
me reading knowing the parallel to the ending of book 3 :))))
Everything gave the impression of patterns within patterns, the twisty creations of the Veretian mind.
This was Vere.
It was dawning on Damen, through the clearing drug-haze, that his captors did not know the identity of their slave. A prisoner of war. A criminal. He let out a careful breath.
Damen knew almost nothing about the Prince except that he was the younger of two sons. The older brother and former heir, Damen well knew, was dead.
The young man had yellow hair, blue eyes and very fair skin. The dark blue of his severe, hard-laced clothing was too harsh for his fair colouring, and stood in stark contrast to the overly ornate style of the rooms. Unlike the courtiers who trailed in his wake, he wore no jewellery, not even rings on his fingers.
“I hear the King of Akielos has sent me a gift,” said the young man, who was Laurent, Prince of Vere.
“An Akielon grovelling on its knees. How fitting.”
Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white, as though in reaction to a slap or an insult.
RAHHHHHHHHH
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” said Laurent, not quite pleasantly.
The words came out before he could stop them. “I speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart.”
But the Prince—Laurent’s particular blend of spoilt arrogance and petty spite—had been unbearable.
“Think what that’d be like, getting a leg over the Prince.” I imagine it would be a lot like lying down with a poisonous snake, thought Damen, but he kept the thought to himself.
He could endure Laurent’s juvenile, pin-prick sadism.
He took a wary step forward. “No,” said Laurent, with satisfaction. “Crawl.” Crawl.
“You have a scar.” He had two, but the one that was now visible lay just below his left collarbone. Damen felt for the first time the stir of real danger, the flicker of his own quickening pulse. “I—served in the army.” It wasn’t a lie.
“The Bastard King disposes of his waste by tossing it at my feet. Is that supposed to appease me?” said Laurent. “Would anything?” said a voice behind him. Laurent turned. “You find fault in so much, lately.” “Uncle,” said Laurent. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
The Regent looked Damen briefly up and down. “The slave appears to have self-inflicted bruising.” “He’s mine. I can do with him what I like.” “Not if you intend having him beaten to death. That’s not a suitable use for the gift of King Kastor. We have a treaty with Akielos, and I won’t see it jeopardised by petty prejudice.” “Petty prejudice,” said Laurent. “I expect you to respect our allies, and the treaty, as do we all.” “I suppose the treaty says that I am to play pet with the dregs of the Akielon army?” “Don’t be childish. Bed who you like. But value the gift of King Kastor. You have
...more
“What was the Prince’s mood?” “Delightful,” said Damen.
It was Laurent’s older brother who had inflicted that scar, six years ago, in battle at Marlas. Auguste, the heir and pride of Vere. Damen recalled his dark golden hair, the starburst blazon of the Crown Prince on his shield splattered over with mud, with blood, dented and almost unrecognisable, like his once-fine filigree armour. He recalled his own desperation in those moments, the scrape of metal against metal, the harsh sounds of breathing that might have been his own, and the feeling of fighting as he never had, all out, for his life.
He pushed the memory to one side, only to have it replaced by another. Darker than the first, and older. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, one fight resonated with another. Damen’s fingers dropped below the water line. The other scar Damen carried was lower on his body. Not Auguste. Not on a battlefield. Kastor had run him through on his thirteenth birthday, during training.
“You have a cut on your lip. Someone hit you. Oh, that’s right, I recall. You stood still and let him. Does it hurt?” He was worse sober. Damen purposefully relaxed his hands, which, restrained behind his back, had become fists.
You really,” said Laurent, “have no idea how happy that idea makes me. It’s perfect: a man who holds you down while he fucks you, with a cock like a bottle and a beard like my uncle’s.”
“It’s so rare to see you at these entertainments, Your Highness,” said Vannes.
Kastor was amusing himself at everyone’s expense. A living hell for his half-brother, and a backhand insult to Vere.
“Sweetmeat?” said Laurent. He held the confection delicately, between thumb and forefinger, just far enough out of reach that Damen would have to rise up onto his knees in order to eat it from Laurent’s fingertips. Damen jerked his head back. “Stubborn,” Laurent remarked mildly, bringing the treat to his own lips instead, and eating it.
Only Laurent seemed immune. He was probably so jaded that this display did not even cause his pulse to flicker. He sat in a graceful sprawl, one wrist balanced on the armrest of the box seat. At any moment, he might contemplate his nails.
They wanted to see a barbarian in the ring? Well, the barbarian could fight.
He knew what he had to do. Against every rebelling instinct, he forced himself forward, and dropped to his knees before Laurent. “I fight in your service, Your Highness.” He searched his memory for Radel’s words, and found them. “I exist only to please my Prince. May my victory reflect on your glory.”
Laurent extended his right leg slightly, the tip of his well-turned boot presenting itself to Damen. “Kiss it,” Laurent said.
Damen bent his head and pressed his lips to the smooth leather. He forced himself to do it with unhurried respect, as a vassal might kiss the ring of a liege lord. He kissed just the curve of the toe-tip.
The young boy was not the man’s son. He was a pet, not yet adolescent, with thin limbs and his growth spurt still far in his future. It was obvious that he was petrified of Damen. The little barrel of his chest was rising and falling rapidly. He was, at the oldest, fourteen. He looked more like twelve.
He gathered the last of his strength to himself and said: “Do whatever you want to me. I’m not going to rape a child.” Laurent’s expression flickered.
“Why not?” he said, abruptly. “Why not?” said Damen. “I don’t share your craven habit of hitting only those who cannot hit back, and I take no pleasure in hurting those weaker than myself.” Driven past reason, the words came out in his own language. Laurent, who could speak his language, stared back at him, and Damen met his eyes and did not regret his words, feeling nothing but loathing.
“Have my horse brought to the north courtyard. I’m going for a ride.”
my lil horsegirl <3
You had better get used to it. The Prince has a reputation for leaving pets unsatisfied.”
“I’m no friend of Govart,” he said finally. Damen thought at first that Govart was the other guard, but he learned otherwise when Jord said, “You must have a death wish to knock out the Regent’s favourite thug.” “. . . the Regent’s what?” said Damen, feeling his stomach sink. “Govart. He was thrown out of the King’s Guard for being a real son of a bitch. The Regent keeps him around. No idea how the Prince got him in the ring, but that one would do anything to piss off his uncle.”
Apparently—in case a miracle happened and his drugged slave managed to win the ring-fight—Laurent had arranged for himself a consolation prize. Damen had unwittingly earned himself a new enemy. Govart. Not only that, but beating Govart in the ring could be taken as a direct slight by the Regent. Laurent, selecting Damen’s opponent with precise malice, would, of course, have known that.
Laurent might talk like he’d been raised on the floor of a brothel, but he had a Veretian courtier’s mind, used to deception and double-dealing. And his petty plots were dangerous to someone as much in his power as Damen.
“You were successful in the ring and even paid the Prince a respectful obeisance. That is excellent. And I see you haven’t struck anyone all morning, well done,” Radel said.
Better to spend the day bored on silk cushions than spend it in the ring. Maybe he just wanted another chance to fight something. Preferably an insufferable yellow-haired princeling.
Once, he had gotten as much as startled eye contact and a blush. That had happened when Damen, sitting with a knee drawn up and his head resting against the wall, had taken pity on the servant boy attempting to do his work while cleaving to the door, and said, “It’s all right. The chain’s very strong.”
In fact the baths were empty, except for one person. As yet untouched by the steam, clothed from toe-tip to neck, and standing in the place where slaves were washed before they entered the soaking bath. When Damen saw who it was, he instinctively lifted a hand to his gold collar, unable to quite believe that he was unrestrained and that they were alone together. Laurent reclined against the tiled wall, settling his shoulders flat against it. He regarded Damen with a familiar expression of golden-lashed dislike.
Laurent smiled. “Did you fight at Marlas?” Damen did not react to the smile, which was not authentic. The conversation was now on a knife edge. He said: “Yes.” “How many did you kill?” “I don’t know.” “Lost count?” Pleasantly, as one might inquire about the weather. Laurent said, “The barbarian won’t fuck boys. He prefers to wait a few years and then use a sword in place of his cock.” Damen flushed. “It was battle. There was death on both sides.” “Oh, yes. We killed a few of you, too. I would like to have killed more, but my uncle is unaccountably clement with vermin. You’ve met him.”
